Reviews of the latest films and music

film review

Celebrated at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and with a cast that immediately made me sit up and pay attention (with names A$AP Rocky, Zoe Kravitz, Chanel Iman and even a quick appearance from Tyga), I was ready and eager to watch a movie which had a story that I felt was easily relatable to 90s kids with a love of hip hop. Basically this film spoke to people like me.

Starring Shameik Moore as school geek Malcolm, the film centres on him and his two high school friends Diggy and Jib. Their obsession and love of 90s hip hop culture influences their music choices, their fashion and their slang.

Feel like watching a tense sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat yet humorous film about an egotistical yet inspiring high-wire artist that risks his life (quite literally) to make his dream come true? And that crazy dream happens to be walking a wire between the Twin Towers in 1974?

You might have sobbed your heart out after seeing The Fault In Our Stars and its tragic love story, but the latest John Green film adaptation Paper Towns will have you celebrating a life spent with true friends and ultimately discovering a life filled with moments that truly make you feel like you’re alive.

Directed by Jake Schreier and starring Nat Wolff (of TFIOS) and Cara Delvingne (Paper Towns being one of a string of films she’s set to appear in the next 12 months), the film focuses on lovestruck Quentin (Wolff), his high school friends and the girl across the street/object of his affections/popular girl in school, Margo Roth Spiegelman (Delvingne).

While everyone was gearing towards seeing the new 50 Shades film (still not watched it – I’m a little unsure), my friends and I went to see Selma. We love a good movie that refers to historical events, and Selma didn’t disappoint us.

Starring the brilliant David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, Jr. and directed by Ava DuVernay, the film centres on the events in Selma where MLK leads a march to Montgomery in his campaign for equal voting rights.

Tris is fighting fit in the second film of the Divergent series, Insurgent (release date 20th March 2015). The first teaser trailer gives us a glimpse of what Tris looks like since the first film Divergent, which was released 20th March 2014.

With a new short haircut – taken from the second book of the series written by Veronica Roth – we see female protagonist Tris (Shailene Woodley) jump off buildings, hanging off ropes and running into a burning building to save her mother.

I applaud you, David Fincher. Yet again, Fincher has made a disturbing, thought-provoking and nail-biting movie. Packed with tension, lies and accusations, Gone Girl is truly remarkable.

Starring Ben Affleck as husband Nick Dunne and Rosamund Pike as doting wife Amy, the film is described as portraying ‘modern marriage’. If modern marriage is how it is in Gone Girl then I don’t want to get married any time soon! We’re shown Nick and Amy in their early relationship days; we see them first meet, their charming ways and their love for one another blossom. Their relationship seems like a fairytale, with the treasure hunts that Amy leaves for Nick acting as a sign of the endless fun that the two have together.

Nick is the voice of the present in the majority of the narrative, and we learn more about Amy’s character in scenes referred to in her diary. From her we see how they met, how they fell in love immediately and make it to their fifth wedding anniversary. But then we start to see the cracks show. Before Nick discovers his wife’s disappearance he’s sat in his bar (cleverly named “The Bar”) complaining to his sister of their anniversary tradition of treasure hunts, seemingly bored of his married life. Then Amy’s diary entries before her disappearance, which we see her writing and are shown each entry’s events, steadily become more worrying.

Last night I decided to make a hot chocolate, curl up and finally watch The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Apart from knowing it was an adaptation of a novel and starred Emma Watson, I wasn’t too sure what to expect.

What I got was a sweet, touching film that also weaves around and delves into deep, serious issues.

Ever since we were given the tiny snippet of the latest Hunger Games film through the Capitol’s TV broadcast way back in June 2014, I’ve been preventing these words from spilling out into a blog post. But I can’t wait any longer and we’ve gained so much more info since then that I can’t help but type these words:THE MOCKINGJAY IS NEARLY HERE AND IT LOOKS EPIC!

Imagine you’re a casting agent for a new film that needs two major Hollywood stars to play siblings, and you have the fabulous opportunity of casting whoever you want (regardless of age gaps)! Who would you choose to act side by side?Below are some examples of film stars who I think would make great brothers and sisters in a movie:

An action-packed fire-filled film for the family!

Now it doesn’t really matter too much if you haven’t seen the first of the sequel, ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ because (although you might want the back-story of just how dragons came to exist within the Viking town in which main character Hiccup lives), the film is just as dynamic, funny, touching and entertaining without it. I went to see the film with two other HTTYD fans and one guy who had never seen the first one, and we all unanimously agreed that it was a good film.